Help me help someone else be primal

So my cousin has been slightly overweight for some years now and after months of talking to her I finally convinced her to go primal. I gave her the primal bluprint and she did the 21 day challenge. To my knowledge and according to what she told me she did not cheat, save for a drink here and there. 21 days came and went, she is probably on the 3rd week after the 21 days and she still has lost no weight.

I know that she should not be looking at the scale as much as her body and she has in fact lost about 1.5 inches from her waist but I just want to give her hope and make sure she stays motivated.

I also think its kind of weird that she has lost the inches but not the weight, where are those inches going?

Her husband also commited to going primal and he has lost a ton of weight so I know its slightly upsetting to her, I don't know what to say to her because I don't have an explanation, and she is starting to tell me that "Some diets just don't work for everyone" Any ideas, recomendations or tweaks that I can pass along?

Some people who aren't used to looking at portion amounts and fat calories often eat more calories than they realize when they switch to primal.

While calories may not be as important for weight loss to some primal eaters, some of us have to keep an eye on that (especially smaller and/or "older" women).

She might also want to have her thyroid hormone levels checked; hypothyroid is a prevalent problem for women that's often overlooked because the symptoms are so subtle (even with "normal" levels, symptoms can still indicate problems).

She also needs to take into account how she feels overall when she eats primal!

There's a post somewhere in the Success Stories archives that made this point very well. The woman said she ended up just hiding her scale because it was not an accurate measure how well primal eating was benefiting her. She specifically mentioned how she was losing inches and getting toned but the scale didn't reflect weight loss. I was happy to stumble across her post at that particular time because I hadn't seen the scale moving much either yet my pants were getting looser by the day. Eventually the scale started showing weight loss again after another week or so. If you can impress this upon your cousin maybe it will encourage her to stick with it. When you drop all the grain, bread, pasta etc. you won't be able to help but lose weight so she will see the results eventually....as long as she isn't cheating and only she knows the truth of that for sure.

Losing inches is better than losing pounds, IMO! Who cares what the scale says if there's a difference you can see and feel! I think part of the problem is the way we measure ourselves against one another. How do we determine who's overweight or not? Not everyone is meant to look like they fell out of a fitness magazine. I used to work out compulsively; I looked better and likely weighed less than I do now, but all I ever thought about was eating/working out. I feel better with a few curves. Thinness isn't the sign of health its often made out to be. Your cousin is making great strides for her health, probably lowering her chances of getting a number of diseases, increasing longevity, etc. Not to mention after a while of eating primally, it doesn't even feel restrictive. I can't have cookies, but who cares? I can have a sweet, crunchy, guilt-free Honey Crisp apple!

It can be easy to overindulge in Primal foods if one is not careful. Some people are hard losers and really have to watch their intake and play around with macros before they find the right mix for weight loss. Do you know what her typical meal plan was?

F 28/5'4/100 lbs

"I'm not a psychopath, I'm a high-functioning sociopath; do your research."